UNDERSTANDING AND INTERPRETING HISTORY: What and How the Learners - PDF document

UNDERSTANDING AND INTERPRETING HISTORY: What and How the Learners can learn from the past? by N Barney Pityana GCOB DRAFT ONLY ABSTRACT The study of History will forever be a contested space. That is because the tools of unlocking historical material and the influences touching on that activity are always evolving and gathering new meanings. And yet, history can also become a harbinger for a variety of contesting ideologies. In South Africa there is something of a revival of interest in history. That, I find, is at the back of the movement in higher education for transformation. A critique of the use and abuse of history in these circumstances will be presented. Alongside that, the paper will examine defensible ways in which history throws light on the present and shapes the future. Then paper will draw on the work of literary figures like Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiong’o, as well as some modern writing on Africa. Tools of engagement with historical material will be examined as well as ways in which assessment can be deepened. --------------- Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past. - George Orwell, 1984 On 10 September 2015, Wits University’s Paleo-anthropology Unit that has been engaged in research into the origins and evolution of the human species, un veiled their latest discovery at a star-studded unveiling at the Cradle of Humankind, Maropeng Visitors’ Centre, at Sterkfontein, north-west of Johannesburg. Prof Lee Burger and his team of researchers announced that they had discovered a distinct species, they called homo naledi , in an almost inaccessible cave some 100 yards from the opening of the cave nine metres deep.

2 Prof Lee Burger, research professor in the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits, announced the find, reputed to be the largest of the fossils, and called it “practically the best known fossil member of our lineage.” Researchers noticed that there was evidence of ritualized behavior by the community that suggested that that was a burial site, conduct previously associated with humans. This sparked a furious reaction from, among others, Dr Mathole Motshekga, as it did in the social media and in other platforms. The essence of the objection appeared to me to be more religious that scientific. It was stated that the find could not possibly show evidence that human beings had apes as descendants. It was feared that to do so would lend credence to the science of racism, and undermined the accepted biblical traditions that human being were created by God “just as we are today.” This debate got me thinking. It said to me that typical of our country, race and race consciousness was always lurking just below the surface and views about religion are always the substance of our disagreements. More substantially, it confirmed for me what I had always known – that in South Africa we tend to use history in a very selective manner, only to the extent that historical material become “facts” that stand alone, or that are self-validating, without any critical, contextual assessment being brought into service. In other words it seems to be the case that some tend to believe that once something is stated as “history” then it brings all argument and contestation to an end. If there is to be any contestation therefore it rather should be about the meaning of history. A similar development can be detected in the prevailing student activism at our university campuses. Much has been made of the statues and monuments from the history of the European colonial settlements and imperial occupation of South Africa. The ostensible reason given for attacking the statues and monuments is that they are reminders of a painful past that must be obliterated, as if that past will thereby cease to exist. To achieve this task a one-dimensional view of history must be purveyed. It is one that simply sees black people and the indigenous peoples of Africa as mere victims. Very little is made of the history of collusion by Africans in the slave trade for example, in the years of resistance to colonial occupation, or in the acts of heroism and resistance, and in cultural and scientific ingenuity that informed Africa, or in recognizing that the history of Africa cannot be confined merely to the advent of Europeans on the soil of Africa. In other words, there is a deliberate denigration of the African personality in the name of anti-coloniality. It was out of listening to so many of these historical distortions that I came to believe that the teaching of history in our country has become an imperative. It means that

3 we ought as a nation to reverse our previous notions that history was no longer an essential, and basic to educational attainment. I came across a petition to the Nigerian Ministry of Education recently (www.change.org) Keep the Study of History in Nigerian Schools by Omei Bongos Ikwue. The petition makes a compelling case for making the study of History a compulsory subject in schools. Ikwue states “History completes our existence.” In other words our human existence is defined by our history. We confirm, resist or seek to change our past, or of those who affect us today. It tells of the exploits and struggles of the past, makes us understand heroes and villains of the past who se memory hovers over our present. It shapes our value systems, and helps us to understand how our values evolves or were shapes or influenced. He quotes an editorial in a Nigerian newspaper Vanguard that says that “when we obliterate history, we should also destroy artefacts, burn museums, monuments and heritage sites.” While we are at it, says Ikwue, we may as well destroy our grandparents, burn all the biographies and old photographs – because they embody the history that we cannot physically experience – the sacrifices, the labours, the hours of thought and study, or even hours of plotting and scheming, that went to shaping our present lives.” In his magisterial work, Why the West Rules – for now (2010) Ian Morris takes the view that to understand and interpret history is to understand and to trace the shape of history. That “shape” does not arise from isolated and singular events. It takes time and human agency for historical events to find their meaning. That meaning is equally subject to interpretation and social sifting through the lens of human imagination. In other words, he says, “The question requires us to look at the whole sweep of human history as a single story, establishing its overall shape, before discussing why it takes that shape” (2010:22). For that reason, observes Morris, a broad approach was needed “combining the historian’s focus on context, the archeologist’s awareness of the deep past, and the social scientist’s comparative methods” (2010:24). On this understanding therefore history is a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary activity. I am always wary of the triumphalism that is often attendant to political history. A history that is put out to bring out the best, or to or to present a sanitized view of human nature. Alternatively, one has to be guarded against views of history that are linear and simplistic. The truth as we all know all human activity is complex, and dubious and inscrutable. History is no different. It is not easy always to understand from hindsight what may have motivated certain kinds of human actions. It then becomes legitimate to interpret and to speculate out of limited factual knowledge at